Climate impact of international travel by Swedish residents

International travel is increasing rapidly, but emissions from this segment are not included in the Kyoto Protocol and seldom in national statistics. The aim of this paper is to estimate the volume of international travel by the Swedish population, and the emissions of greenhouse gas associated with that travel. Data used are from a national travel survey for 2006 including 27,000 telephone interviews. It is shown that international travel by the Swedish population amounted to 37 billion passenger-km, or 4100 km per capita in 2006. This corresponds to 22.5% of total travel by Swedes, an increase from 16.6% in 1994. Emissions of greenhouse gases from international travel by the Swedish population in 2006 amounted to 8.5 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalents, of which 92% stems from air travel. This is approx. 11% of total Swedish emissions including international transport. It is concluded that a continued growth of international travel at current pace hardly may be reconciled with long-term climate targets.

► The aim is to estimate GHG emissions from international travel by Swedes. ► The total emissions amount to 8.4 million tons of CO2-eq or 1 ton per capita. ► These emissions stand for 11% of total Swedish GHG emissions. ► Continued growth of air travel is hard to reconcile with climate targets.